Modi’s Hindu nationalist party loses India’s Karnataka state in crucial polls ahead of national vote

A near-complete vote count Saturday showed India’s main opposition Congress party taking control of southern Karnataka from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, boosting its prospects ahead of next year’s national elections.

The survey results are anticipated to excite the fragmented opposition, which hopes to unify to challenge Modi in next year’s general election, in which he will seek a third term as prime minister. They will also help the Congress party, which lost the last two national elections to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and is trying to recover national prominence.

Modi’s party, which relied on his popularity, lost Karnataka, the only southern state it has ever ruled and where its strident Hindu nationalist ideas have been received more slowly than elsewhere. Modi held massive roadshows across Karnataka, home to 65 million people, for weeks.

With vote counting ongoing, India’s Election Commission said that the Congress had won 123 seats in the state assembly and led in 12 others. 64 seats went to Modi. Janata Dal (Secular) won 20 seats.

On Wednesday, India’s wealthiest state, Karnataka, voted. Results are anticipated Saturday.

Modi lost Karnataka to the Congress for the second time in six months. In Himachal Pradesh, a small Himalayan state, the Congress defeated the BJP in December.

The Congress national secretary, Jairam Ramesh, credited the party’s victory to its campaign on local concerns such “livelihood and food security, price rise, farmer distress, electricity supply, joblessness, and corruption.”

“The PM polarized and divided. Ramesh said that Karnataka voters want a Bengaluru engine that combines economic progress and social peace.

Bengaluru, India’s IT capital, attracts young professionals.

“The markets of hate have been shut down and the shops of love have opened,” Congress leader Rahul Gandhi told reporters at the party headquarters in New Delhi, where his fans and party members exploded firecrackers and danced to drums.

Over the past two years, Modi’s party has tried to maximize gains in Karnataka, where religious division between majority Hindus and minority Muslims has grown after BJP leaders and supporters banned girls from wearing the headscarf as part of their school uniform. Karnataka’s 2011 census found 84% Hindu, 13% Muslim, and 2% Christian.

Modi initially promised development and social welfare to win supporters. However, in the run-up to the elections, it swung toward Hindu nationalism, its typical playbook, and accused the Congress of ignoring Hindu ideals and pandering minority groups, particularly Muslims. It also removed a 4% Muslim job and education quota and gave it to two Hindu caste groupings.

The Congress campaigned against Modi’s party over rising prices, corruption, and infrastructure development in the state, pledging power subsidies, rations to needy families, and financial aid to unemployed graduates.

The votes were also considered as another showdown between Modi and Gandhi, the Congress party’s scion who was convicted of defaming the prime minister’s last name during an electoral rally in 2019. Gandhi was expelled from Parliament in March, and if his sentence is upheld, he will be ineligible to run for eight years.

Gandhi began a 3,500-kilometer (2,185-mile) walking tour of Indian cities, towns, and villages late last year to revitalize the party and win public support.

Karnataka is the first of five critical state elections this year. They indicate voter sentiment ahead of national elections next year.